Chapter 63
“Demon Monk?”
“Yes… yes…”
Haowei and Si Lan exchanged glances again, surprised that Yu Wuxia had already replaced Xue Rong.
“However, after defeating the Old Ghost King, Prince Xue Rong’s cultivation fluctuated greatly, only in recent years becoming unfathomably deep, unknown to outsiders.”
Si Lan speculated that Yu Wuxia had initially reached some sort of agreement with Xue Rong, first borrowing Xue Rong’s body, and later completely taking over.
He couldn’t help but recall the first time he encountered Xue Rong in the ghost realm. At that time, he hadn’t found his mother’s soul, and after causing a ruckus in the ghost palace, he sat at the Tianmen Gate with a long whip, watching a group of old ghosts bully a young ghost below.
Unable to stand it, he wielded his whip to chase away the old ghosts.
The young ghost, with a pale face, got up from the ground and bowed in his direction. At that time, he was not yet of age, and his figure looked almost the same age as the young ghost.
The young ghost looked at him, choosing his words carefully, “Xue Rong thanks Brother for saving my life. May I know Brother’s name?”
“Si Lan.”
The young ghost bowed in thanks again, standing under the Tianmen Gate, and left after a moment’s gaze.
The incident of him causing a ruckus in the ghost palace was soon known by Si Shaoxun. Si Shaoxun caught him, dragged him to apologize to the Old Ghost King in the ghost palace, and then took him back to the demon realm to be punished in confinement.
Years later, the next time he heard the name Xue Rong, it was when Xue Rong had become the King of the Underworld.
He felt a bit sentimental, asked the ghost messenger a few more questions, and then released him. He and Haowei went to check Xue Rong’s sleeping quarters.
Xue Rong’s quarters were unlike other eerie places in the underworld, instead, they were bright and clean, filled with light. On the walls hung four paintings of plum blossoms, orchids, bamboo, and chrysanthemums. Below the paintings, two incense sticks burned softly. Behind eight screens, there was only a single rope hanging in mid-air, serving as a bed.
Besides this, the room was empty.
Haowei walked to the paintings and cast a spell in the air. The plum blossoms in the painting trembled, and the petals formed an illusion, subtly changing the scene in the painting with simple strokes.
In the snow, plum blossoms falling, a light gray robe tightly wrapped around a yellow official’s robe. Under the robe, a slender, pale ankle was exposed, the foot arched and toes curled tightly, as if enduring some pain.
With just a few strokes, everything was depicted vividly.
Si Lan’s ears turned slightly red, and his gaze moved to the other three paintings. The paintings of orchids, bamboo, and chrysanthemums also changed. The orchid hung down, and as jade dew dropped, in the previously blank space appeared two intertwined figures.
A fragile waist like willow on jade stone, two pale legs wrapped around the person above. Silent, yet more evocative than sound.
Si Lan could no longer bear to look and turned away, grumbling, “How can Yu Wuxia be so shameless?”
He had actually hung four erotic paintings of himself and Immortal Jiaheng in his room, intending to view them at leisure.
If Immortal Jiaheng knew, he would probably be furious.
Haowei said, “These four paintings are manifestations of Yu Wuxia’s desires.”
Si Lan frowned, “In these paintings, Immortal Jiaheng looks younger than Yu Wuxia. Could it be that the Immortal Jiaheng we saw before deliberately appeared old?”
“Yes, I suppose Immortal Jiaheng, knowing Yu Wuxia’s intentions, showed himself in that form.”
“Even if Immortal Jiaheng is handsome, how could Yu Wuxia fall for him?”
The entanglements between the two of them across past and present lives were hard to believe, considering that the monk’s disciple who endured cutting flesh and bones would fall for the one who devoured him.
Haowei glanced at Si Lan with deep meaning, “Sometimes, liking someone can be just a glance.” It isn’t that complicated.
After speaking, Haowei, recalling something, took out the erotic painting given to him by Shanshi Immortal and placed it beside the “Plum, Orchid, Bamboo, and Chrysanthemum” paintings. The scenes in the five paintings seemed to move, half-hidden, indicating a taboo and unknown love.
At this moment, a hand suddenly reached out from the “Orchid” painting near Si Lan, pulling him into the painting. He saw another hand reach out from the “Plum” painting and grab Haowei.
Before they could react, they were already pulled into another time and space.
Si Lan felt like he was falling rapidly from the sky, stabilizing himself in panic after landing. Instinctively, he called out, “Haowei,” but there was no response.
It was pitch dark around him, and he couldn’t see anything. He cast a spell to create a small flame, illuminating the illusion around him. He found himself in a forest of dead trees, seemingly scorched by fire, with no leaves on the branches and the bark wrinkled in layers.
The flame flickered in the wind, casting shadows of the trees that seemed to weave a dense, sinister net over him. As the flame dimmed, he could faintly see headless corpses hanging from the branches, a truly terrifying sight.
But when the flames lit up, the branches were clean and empty.
He didn’t know where he was but knew that Yu Wuxia had dragged him in here, intending to trap him in an illusion. Just as he was pondering what was important enough for Yu Wuxia to trap him, Xiao Xie Li’s voice suddenly rang in his mind, asking for help.
“Honored One, senior brother… senior brother… sob sob…”
Si Lan asked, “What happened to Quze?”
“Senior brother was captured, Honored One. I was also beaten up and thrown to the bottom of a cliff, sob sob…” Xie Li’s words were garbled and trembling due to his crying, making Si Lan’s heart ache even more.
Si Lan steadied his mind, “Did you see who captured Quze?”
“Sob sob, it was a monk. The monk even pinched my face.”
A monk… Could it be Yu Wuxia?
Why capture Quze?
He suddenly thought of the last person to be sacrificed on Linglong Mountain. He had initially thought the sacrifice would be the fox demon imprisoned under Linglong Mountain or some other nearby demon, so he hadn’t considered anyone else.
Thinking about it now, Dayong, Jiuying, and Gui Kui all had tragic fates, plagued by disaster. They had the Lone Luan evil destiny, and Quze seemed to fit this as well.
Could the last sacrifice be Quze?
Suppressing his shock, Si Lan comforted Xie Li, “Don’t be afraid. I’ll have Song Cheng and Song Ye come to rescue you. How did you end up at the bottom of the cliff?”
“Sob sob, I was beaten and then kicked down from the sky. Honored One, you must avenge me and beat that nasty monk.”
Half of Xie Li’s words were true and half were false. True, he did fall to the bottom of the cliff. False, he wasn’t beaten or kicked down by Yu Wuxia. Instead, Yu Wuxia had ridden a fierce giant beast to Zhu Yun Peak and captured Quze.
Xie Li had clung to Quze’s robe, refusing to let go despite being swatted by the beast’s wings. Later, Yu Wuxia approached, pinched his face, and, taking advantage of his distraction, tapped his forehead, causing him to fall limply from the sky.
When he woke up, he was at the bottom of the cliff.
Feeling wronged, Xie Li exaggerated his story, hoping Si Lan would seek revenge for him and Quze.
“Okay.” Worried about Xie Li’s safety, Si Lan assured him while simultaneously contacting Song Cheng and Song Ye through telepathy, instructing them to rescue Xie Li.
After that, he called out to Haowei several times through telepathy before finally getting a response. It seemed like Haowei had just been through a battle, with the faint sound of rolling boulders in the background.
Haowei’s voice was hoarse, “I’m here.”
He quickly asked, “How are things on your end?”
“I’m fine, I…” Si Lan’s words were cut short when he glimpsed the “headless corpses” hanging from the withered branches, seemingly coming to life and lunging at him. He quickly dodged the attack, drew his whip, but then saw that the “corpses” had vanished.
In the eerie silence of the withered forest, there was no sign of life except him. He accidentally stepped on a broken branch, producing a creaking sound. Quickly moving his foot, he discovered a skull beneath the branch.
Black hair oozed out of the skull’s eye sockets, entangling his feet. He immediately conjured a talisman to destroy the skull. The other skulls on the ground also started to move, breaking through the cover of the withered trees, slowly turning towards him, their dark eye sockets seemingly staring at him.
Frightened by the creepy scene, Si Lan furrowed his brow, warily watching the skulls while trying to contact Haowei again, but to no avail.
He had no choice but to take out the compass from his Qiankun Bag to check his position. The needle spun around once, was about to stop, then suddenly started spinning wildly, unable to point in any direction. At the same time, the skulls on the ground flew towards him.
He quickly drew a formation to fend off the skulls’ attacks and flew above the withered forest, hoping to get a clearer view of the strange place. However, he found that the forest had no end.
The skulls followed his movements, piling up like a small mountain, wrapping around the barrier.
In the next moment, the barrier turned into a net, enveloping the skulls. The skulls struggled desperately inside, like fierce beasts trying to tear open the barrier, but they remained firmly sealed.
At this moment, a strange sound of drums and gongs came from afar.
A wedding procession emerged from the eerie misty corner, with two figures resembling guards leading the way. Four bearers carried a red sedan chair, its red pennant swaying gently, with a matchmaker standing beside it.
As the procession approached, Si Lan noticed that all their eyes were sewn shut, dense stitches crisscrossing their eyelids like centipedes coiled in their sockets. Although their mouths were tightly closed, it was clear they were filled with dirt, preventing them from making any sound.
Seeing that they couldn’t see him, Si Lan landed next to the sedan chair and cast a spell to lift the curtain, revealing a paper bride inside.
The paper bride was painted lifelike, with delicate and gentle features, almost indistinguishable from a real person.
When he met the bride’s gaze, a chill ran down his spine. He reached out to touch the bride, realizing that the reason she looked so lifelike was that the paper was covered with a layer of human skin.
From the corpses in the withered forest, he guessed that this place was some kind of sacrificial formation, but why was there a paper bride?
Suppressing his unease, he cast a spell and sat in the sedan chair, accompanying the paper bride.
After an unknown amount of time, the sedan chair stopped. The matchmaker lifted the curtain, and a paper groom dressed in wedding attire appeared, bending down to carry the bride into the wedding hall.
The groom, like the bride, was a paper figure covered in human skin.
Si Lan looked ahead at the eerie and sinister wedding hall, noticing that both the servants and the elders seated there had their eyes sewn shut and mouths filled with dirt.
How did these people end up like this?
Could it be that they were not supposed to see the appearance of this newlywed couple?
Suppressing his inner shock and chill, Si Lan watched as the couple bowed in ceremony and entered the bridal chamber, following them inside.
The bridal chamber was bizarrely arranged, without a bed but with two graves. Walking up to the graves, he looked at the inscriptions on them. He had expected them to be plaques for a married couple, but after reading the words, he discovered they were actually for a stepson and stepmother.
He raised his head and looked at the paper people in the bridal chamber, vaguely understanding their identities. Originally stepmother and stepson, they fell in love later on.
This relationship defied conventional morality and was not tolerated by society.
Therefore, all the “people” attending this wedding had their eyes sewn shut. These “people” couldn’t see them, so naturally, they couldn’t condemn them.
“Junli.”
A deep, unfamiliar male voice suddenly echoed in the bridal chamber.
Si Lan’s heart jumped. Following the voice, he turned around and saw a figure that had appeared behind him at some point.
The figure was indistinct, its features blurred. The lead-gray kasaya moved without wind, with a deep brown rosary hanging from the chest, all indicating the identity of Yu Wuxia.
Looking at the phantom of Yu Wuxia, Si Lan’s heart raced for a moment. Instinctively, he lowered his brows and held his breath, then heard Yu Wuxia’s voice.
“These lovers, during their lifetime, one was a young stepmother who became a widow at twenty-five, and the other was a stepson who had just turned sixteen and become an adult. Clearly in love, they were condemned by society for their stepmother-stepson relationship, deemed contrary to social norms, and suffered cruel punishment, flayed alive and thrown into the river.”
“After their death, their resentment lingered, transforming into fierce ghosts who killed everyone in the village, sewing shut their eyes and silencing their mouths. Yet in doing so, they too faced punishment, trapped here day after day, repeating their obsession of becoming partners in life.”
“Junli, do you think they did wrong?”
Yu Wuxia’s voice seemed to come from a distant place, carrying fatigue of travels and a casual indifference, as if asking him, yet also speaking to himself.
This was the first time Yu Wuxia had spoken to Si Lan.
Si Lan speculated that these paper people were likely an incident Yu Wuxia had dealt with when he was a disciple of Buddhism. Presumably, it was during that time that Yu Wuxia resonated with the fate of these paper people.
“Do you know how they can break this curse? As long as one of them wavers in their heart, no longer wanting to be with the other, they can be freed from this curse and reincarnate. Yet, after a thousand times, ten thousand times, each time they chose to hold each other’s hands and enter the tomb.”
“So they did nothing wrong; it is the norms and ethics of this world that are wrong. Even if they face endless calamities, they will resist these norms and ethics to the end.”
Si Lan understood that Yu Wuxia’s words were actually hinting at his relationship with Jia Héng Immortal.
A disciple falling in love with his master was already something society could not tolerate, let alone when the disciple was a Buddhist, making it the most taboo of taboos.
Si Lan dared not speak lightly, afraid of touching Yu Wuxia’s sore spot, simply saying, “Although this world has many heartless and rigid rules, there are also people like me who oppose them.”
Pausing, Si Lan added, “How is Quze now?”
Laughter echoed from the phantom.
“If you break this illusion, enter the Pentagram Array in the Linglong Mountain, naturally, you will see Quze. However, if you come back in three days, you might only see his body.”
T/N: Hey there! There is plenty more where that came from, so stay tuned! And stay healthy! Straighten your posture, so some stretches and drink some water before continuing hehe~
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If you like cats, check out Revenge of the Garfield
If you like dragons, check out I’m Pregnant with the Hope of the Entire Planet and The Dragon and the ‘Princess’
How about some mystery or showbiz? Check out Morbid Addiction & Perfection
What about the perfect, most non-toxic male lead ever? Laws of Love
How about MC nursing ML back to health? Forced into the Deep
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